Legal/Illegal vs Right/Wring

Either do I.

What you're wanting to debate is morals.

 

Dr. MLK sums it up nicely:

"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'"

 

Well put and totally agree.

 

I disagree that one has the moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. There are too many instances where people legitimately disagree about whether a law is just, and therefore simply disobeying because your opinion wasn't followed does not improve society.

If one considers a law to be unjust, then one should fight to change that law and use primarily legal means to do so. Personally, I don't have a problem with peaceful demonstrations or even civil disobedience. But if you can't get enough people to join your cause and make enough of a stink to change things, then perhaps the law you are fighting isn't so obviously wrong (or perhaps you just need to be more patient).

Trying to come up with good current examples of unjust laws will be difficult because you'll find a lot of people who disagree (e.g. red light cameras). Disobeying those laws makes little sense. If you want to change them then get involved. You'll have more of an impact and the added (peaceful) discussion will improve society.

 

Putting people in prison for victimless crimes (like mar1juana possession) seems unjust to me.

 

Legality has nothing to with right or wrong.
Laws can be struck down or repealed, so they don't represent perpetual right or wrong.
Using condoms was once illegal. Adultery is still illegal in many states, just never prosecuted. That tells you how much legality has to do right or wrong.

 

Too many. Just look up your state's penal code, you will be shocked.

 

some bad laws aren't necessarily wrong, just bad policy.

like legalized monopolies.

my 2 cents

 

It's more like the other way around, morality influences legality.
Public nudity laws, only morality can explain it.

 

I'm pretty much in the camp that any law which prohibits any action that does not directly affect someone without their consent is bullcrap. (note: I said directly, not indirectly, as in if we legalized prostitution how upset wives do not qualify as directly affected, they are indirectly affected as it was their husbands who chose infidelity)

 

The problem though is if you really do find the law to be unjust and a moral harm just obeying it perpetuates the moral harm. For instance that would be like if Rosa Parks continued to sit in the back of the bus but wrote letters to her state Reps to change it. The power of her statement was to force society to directly confront the unjustness of the law by first showing that she didn't recognize the legitimacy of the law and second by shaming the authorities into enforcing a law that most people found immoral.

Sometimes the only way to change an unjust law is to break it.

 

I don't think it is quite that simple. Laws are meant to reflect a shared morality in a state but they also enforce that shared morality to those who question or don't share that morality. So for instance in a strict Muslim society as a foreigner under your morals it is perfectly fine for a woman to walk around unescorted by a male but that isn't their morality. To prevent just anyone from dictating right and wrong their laws enforce their societal morals.

Cultures often change but it seems like that often the laws don't, or don't change fast enough. The laws are enforced and judged by humans so there is plenty of wiggle room for judges and prosecutors to decide when a law has gotten out of touch with society.

 

It depends on the situation. However, if you're going to make a general rule I don't think that breaking laws you feel are unjust is the way to go.

To my knowledge the civil rights movement wasn't just about breaking laws they thought were unjust. It was about making a loud statement to expose the unjustness of that law. That included civil disobedience, but it also included massive and legal protests.

I think that laws you feel unjustly persecute or discriminate are ones where it is more appropriate to peaceful disobey, but those are a small portion of the rules by which we live, and there aren't many instances of discriminatory laws left.

Right and wrong is never decided by law, and you should never do something that is wrong simply because the law says that it is illegal not to. But there's nothing wrong with following a law you don't believe in if it doesn't explicitly break your moral code. In fact, I'd say it is better to do so.

 

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Sounds like this is just making excuses for breaking the law.... If you want a law changed, go through the appropriate channels. Otherwise, expect to suffer the consequences. Now that your man is in office, I'd think your attitude would change a little bit. Guess not.

What ever happened to the hard working, law abiding, responsible people that used to comprise America? I guess November 2008 marked a time when they were in the voting minority.

 

This is jaw droppingly stupid on so many levels.

Astonishingly dumb.

Astoundingly ignorant.

An excuse to break the law? Like people break laws out of protest for fun? I'm guessing all those people at sit-ins during the 50s thought getting sprayed with firehoses and chased by german shepherds was a rootin' tootin' good time.

Why would Obama being elected change anyone's view on what is just vs. unjust? Their moral compass stays the same, no matter what is politically convenient, because unlike you, they have what is called integrity.

What does "hardworking" or "responsibility" have to do with this discussion? Sounds like someone is sucking on his "welfare state libruhls" pacifier again. Keep this off-topic stuff in the appropriate channels or expect to suffer the consequences.

 

I'd like to vote for 2 and 4. A case to consider that quickly came to mind: Hood v. Nottingham.




Scopes Trial is another.